I've always had a passing interest in Mech games, so I dabbled with MW2 (and I either 3 and/or 4, I don't remember clearly) and picked up & put down Mech Commander several times. I was only dimly aware of EarthSiege/StarSiege, although I did play Tribes a little after Sierra released it for free to promoted Tribes 2.

Doesn't surprise me that Dynamix made MW1 and EarthSiege, as 3D simulations were their thing. What's really interesting is Betrayal at Krondor, as it is an RPG that uses a sim engine for the 3D world graphics.

I bet GOG.com could get EarthSiege since they've got a number of other Sierra titles now.

Edit: The hint for next week's episode is killing me. I never played Elite but I'm familiar with it; I didn't know there were a lot of other DOS-era games like it besides Privateer.

Origin created a space game before Wing Commander: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Rogue

One day, I will sit down and play it 🤣

HunterZ wrote:

I've always had a passing interest in Mech games, so I dabbled with MW2 (and I either 3 and/or 4, I don't remember clearly) and picked up & put down Mech Commander several times. I was only dimly aware of EarthSiege/StarSiege, although I did play Tribes a little after Sierra released it for free to promoted Tribes 2.

Doesn't surprise me that Dynamix made MW1 and EarthSiege, as 3D simulations were their thing. What's really interesting is Betrayal at Krondor, as it is an RPG that uses a sim engine for the 3D world graphics.

I blame MechWarrior 2 for my interest in mecha stuff. I got the demo version on CD one day and I couldn't put it down, despite it being hard as nails and despite it being only a single mission to play, so I had to get the full game.

I can add Betrayal at Krondor to my requests list if you like, though I don't own it yet.

HunterZ wrote:

I bet GOG.com could get EarthSiege since they've got a number of other Sierra titles now.

Actually, for some reason I thought they DID, but while I was recording the audio I noticed I never wrote that down in my notes, so I recorded it both ways, one for if GOG didn't have it, one for if it did, I went to check after recording, and they didn't. :P

After I got the episode up I started looking around a little more about EarthSiege 2 and discovered that, because it's a 16-bit application, many people are having trouble getting it running on modern Windows systems. That could be part of the reason why GOG doesn't have it up yet.

HunterZ wrote:

Edit: The hint for next week's episode is killing me. I never played Elite but I'm familiar with it; I didn't know there were a lot of other DOS-era games like it besides Privateer.

Excellent. Then all is going according to plan! Mwa ha ha ha ha! >:D

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Origin created a space game before Wing Commander: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Rogue

One day, I will sit down and play it

Oooh. I didn't know about that one. The title screen looks very much like the Space Quest title screen. ;)

And it's not much of a giveaway that I'm not reviewing it because it wasn't anywhere CLOSE to being independently made. :P

HunterZ wrote:

The hint for next week's episode is killing me. I never played Elite but I'm familiar with it; I didn't know there were a lot of other DOS-era games like it besides Privateer.

I've thought of a few that may have been inspired by Elite but none that were independent let alone 2 of them. At first maybe Frontier but those are part of the Elite series and several people worked on them.

Gemini000 wrote:

I can add Betrayal at Krondor to my requests list if you like, though I don't own it yet.

It's definitely worth checking out.

I grabbed a copy way back when Sierra put it up as a free download for a while to promote something else, but they did not give permission to redistribute it and eventually took it down. A lot of people were confused iinto thinking it was freeware for a long time and passed it around, but GOG.com now has it available in a pack with Betrayal at Antara (a completely unrelated game using the same engine) for $6. Looks easy to find on eBay as well.

One thing worth noting is that there were both floppy and CD-ROM versions released. The floppy version makes you choose between SoundBlaster mode (Adlib music plus a smattering of digitized sound effects) and General MIDI (a nice soundtrack but with none of the digitized sounds 🙁). The CD-ROM version uses digitized sounds along with CD audio tracks for the music (pre-recorded from a MIDI synth of Sierra's choice, no doubt). I haven't played the CD-ROM version much, so I can't compare the two quality-wise.

After I got the episode up I started looking around a little more about EarthSiege 2 and discovered that, because it's a 16-bit application, many people are having trouble getting it running on modern Windows systems. That could be part of the reason why GOG doesn't have it up yet.

Bummer. Should be possible to run it in a Win3.1 install inside of DOSBox though, but of course that's not something GOG can do.

GOG has the CD version if anyone is interested.

HunterZ wrote:

After I got the episode up I started looking around a little more about EarthSiege 2 and discovered that, because it's a 16-bit application, many people are having trouble getting it running on modern Windows systems. That could be part of the reason why GOG doesn't have it up yet.

Bummer. Should be possible to run it in a Win3.1 install inside of DOSBox though, but of course that's not something GOG can do.

To be honest, until you suggested that, I always thought it was a Windows 95 only game. It requires DirectX 2.0 under Windows 95 and also came out just before 1996 started. Reading the system requirements though I discovered that it supposedly does work in Windows 3.1. :O

I still have my original Windows 3.1 disks laying around. It would be interesting to see if I could actually get the game working in Windows 3.1, in DOSBox. The framerate would probably be a joke, but still...

Nah, if you've got a good Dual Core system it will probably be at the very least playable 😁.
The biggest problem would be Windows 3.1 itself. Such a mess...

sorry for jumping late on the train, is there a real DOS version of Megazeux available? All I see for download are SDL ports to new OSes

edit: dang, I was blind or something in the morning 😵
http://vault.digitalmzx.net/search.php?browse=4

Ancient DOS Games Episode 34 - LineWars & LineWars II is online!

Hopefully my nerding out at the beginning doesn't scare away too many people... LineWars and LineWars II are both easier to appreciate the more of a programmer you are, so it was kinda necessary for me to get a little technical this episode. Hopefully the ending makes up for it. ;)

And the music during the credits is actually the digitized PC Speaker music you hear on the title screen in the first LineWars game. The crazy thing being that I analysed the file that the music is actually stored in and the huge amount of distortion was actually recorded directly into it! o_O

Gemini000: The theme I hear in Linewars 2, reminds me of Jean Michelle Jarre Oxygene 2. And the hint you gave about your next review reminded me a bit of the Warlords 2 game(s) so if you ever review Warlords 2 and 2 Deluxe, then please make them in separate episodes, either two Saturdays after each other, or make two episodes that you release the same Saturday. Since to me they really deserve some good loving and respect.

I think I played LineWars a little bit and wasn't really hooked by it. I probably got it from a BBS since I was into that scene in the early-to-mid 90s, but I never knew anyone who played it multiplayer.

Finnish assembly-based games aren't too surprising to me, as those guys seem to be the origin of a lot of the assembly-based demos and tracker music.

Is it SHARE.EXE that LineWars II needs? If so, then it's important because the DOSBox devs don't seem to be aware that SHARE.EXE has a game-related use (I didn't know either, except maybe in the case of BBS stuff).

WolverineDK wrote:

The theme I hear in Linewars 2, reminds me of Jean Michelle Jarre Oxygene 2.

All the music in LineWars II was originally done by the music tracking group U4ia, though I believe most, if not all of it, was modified just a little.

WolverineDK wrote:

And the hint you gave about your next review reminded me a bit of the Warlords 2 game(s) so if you ever review Warlords 2 and 2 Deluxe, then please make them in separate episodes, either two Saturdays after each other, or make two episodes that you release the same Saturday. Since to me they really deserve some good loving and respect.

I'll add them to my requests list. I wanted to do LineWars and LineWars II together since they would've made for tiny episodes if I did them separately.

HunterZ wrote:

Is it SHARE.EXE that LineWars II needs? If so, then it's important because the DOSBox devs don't seem to be aware that SHARE.EXE has a game-related use (I didn't know either, except maybe in the case of BBS stuff).

Yes, LineWars II uses SHARE.EXE to work its networked multiplayer magic.

because the DOSBox devs don't seem to be aware that SHARE.EXE has a game-related use

Feel free to post a patch that adds true file sharing interfacing, then i'll enable the share detection.

Excellent review!

I think / pretty sure we played LineWars or a clone at school. However the version we where using did have networking support. It looked very similar, but didn't have that huge border around the cockpit. But it had the radar, the rockets, the rear view, but it wasn't 100% that same game...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I think / pretty sure we played LineWars or a clone at school. However the version we where using did have networking support. It looked very similar, but didn't have that huge border around the cockpit. But it had the radar, the rockets, the rear view, but it wasn't 100% that same game...

That game was probably Netwars. It was a big hit in our school's computer rooms, but only because the computers were too slow to run DOOM properly... 🙄

5u3 wrote:

That game was probably Netwars. It was a big hit in our school's computer rooms, but only because the computers were too slow to run DOOM properly... 🙄

That's it! Thanks!

🤣 it looks quite different to Linewars. Funny how your memory can play tricks on you...

Gemini000: the letter ø / Ø is a tough nut to crack. But if you are good with the German letter ö / Ö , then it is the exact letter sound 😀 Also you can mention, that the source of Micropolis (as you mentioned) is something you can play on Linux.

Ancient DOS Games Episode 35 - SimCity is online!

Nothing too much to say that I haven't already said in the additional information section. Plus I haven't gotten to bed yet so it's hard to think if there's anything I missed.

I will say that numerous people guessed today's episode correctly, more than just the three who got into the credits, but I figure I have to put a cap somewhere or else the credits could start getting ridiculously long at some point. ^_^;

I always list the people who guessed correctly in order of first to third.

WolverineDK wrote:

Gemini000: the letter ø / Ø is a tough nut to crack. But if you are good with the German letter ö / Ö , then it is the exact letter sound :) Also you can mention, that the source of Micropolis (as you mentioned) is something you can play on Linux.

Actually, I've done my research. The 'ø' in Brøderbund is indeed pronounced like the word "food" instead of the word "code". The line through the o was never meant to represent the actual letter. ;)

As for the Micropolis source, it's been made cross-platform since its initial release so I didn't really think it was worth singling out any operating systems, especially since the only people who are going to be able to take advantage of it will be programmers in the first place. I suppose I can quickly add a little note to the video page that it was originally for Linux but has been made cross-platform since.

Gemini000 wrote:

WolverineDK wrote:

The theme I hear in Linewars 2, reminds me of Jean Michelle Jarre Oxygene 2.

All the music in LineWars II was originally done by the music tracking group U4ia, though I believe most, if not all of it, was modified just a little.

It isn't just modified a little - its in its own unique format! It ain't even .mod anymore!
I actually prefer the LW2 versions over the U4ia ones 😀

Gemini000 wrote:

Yes, LineWars II uses SHARE.EXE to work its networked multiplayer magic.

CyberBykes is another 'share.exe' game for local area multiplayer as well.